i rebuilded , /boot has: initrd.img-2.6.16 ( created by mkinitrd) ,
vmlinuz-2.6.16 and everything is set fine in grub (menu.lst file ) , it
detects the drives during boot but then somehow want to create raid
using old names...

did you try rebuilding a new kernel with raid & disk drivers compiled
built-in (not as modules) ?